Creating a Coaching Culture - By Jeff Delay - February 2010

Through my work as a coach supporting senior leaders and managers, often in large, multi-national organisations, I often hear people speak about their desire to create a ‘coaching culture’ within their organisation. Typically, they recognise most of the benefits of doing so – high employee engagement, improved communication, staff retention - but are often unsure of how or where to begin and feeling somewhat overwhelmed!

Of course, while the steps may be relatively easy to identify, acting on them can sometimes be more challenging, with plenty of eminently reasonable excuses and opportunities to give up along the way, such as:

• feeling you’re a lone voice in a large chorus line
• management colleagues understand coaching to mean telling someone how to do something – so they resist
• your resources have been ‘re-routed’ by others
• you began implementing a coaching culture but, due to the resistance of others, sought refuge in a bar and drank your body-weight in crème de menthe while you gave it further thought

So, assuming you’ve not yet taken refuge at the bar, I will provide you with ten practical steps to get off to the best start.

Where to begin? That is the question.

It’s important to stress that every organisation’s path to establishing a coaching culture is ultimately unique, and must be acknowledged as such.

STEP ONE: Define what a coaching culture will do for us

A coaching culture should be a means to an end in itself. Otherwise it will become an item on the ‘Doom-Loop’ model of Jim Collins (Good to Great) or stay at the level of interesting concepts, like 'building a learning organisation', or 'customer-centric organisation' were before.

It is therefore critical to achieve a clear understanding (and agreement) on how a coaching culture will support the core strategy of the business.

STEP TWO: Link the coaching culture strategy and the core strategy

A client with whom I recently worked wanted a coaching culture to deliver a more consensual leadership structure, so that ultimately key decisions could be made closer to the customer, which in turn created greater flexibility of service: a key area of competitive advantage. This helped to mitigate the cynicism of management colleagues who did not think coaching was helpful in an environment where, historically, blunt force (turning up the heat on individuals) had worked. Well sort of…

STEP THREE: Build an appreciative and developmental view of the organisation's current and aspirational culture

People in organisations tend to react badly when being told: ‘You need to develop a coaching culture.'

Perhaps the most effective way of building consent is to ensure that coaching happens across roles and hierarchies and is seen to be embraced by senior leadership. Differing views and experiences can only serve to enrich the experiences of participants, eliciting positive aspects of the current culture, what is not working and what needs further consideration.

STEP FOUR: Identify your desired culture

They say that you get the culture you create. You, me, us… procedures, vision, identity, values, beliefs, behaviours etc… arguably all of these ingredients are involved in creating a culture. However accurately describing organisational culture can be tricky. What currently defines your leadership and management culture? What recent circumstances / decisions and subsequent behaviours have led to this?

How can you be (embody) the culture you want to see? The answers then become a catalyst for coaching so that the process is demand-led, rather than imposed from above.

STEP FIVE: Create a resource of appropriate coaches, experts, mentors, guides, drawing on external expertise as appropriate

Getting the right ‘fit’ in any coaching relationship is essential. This can only happen if there is a resource pool to draw from i.e. what works well for Tom is inappropriate for Harry or Dick.

Whilst it’s important that coaches should be accredited and experienced, the main essential ingredient is that they ‘fit’ well with the organisation in terms of approach/ language etc. It’s helpful if coaches are given the opportunity to access senior leaders in order to help them achieve the desired change needed.

We must ensure where possible and appropriate that coaching is not just for individuals but for teams and departments too. Culture resides more in the collective relationships than it does in individuals. Individual development does not change the culture. When all the individuals concerned take personal responsibility firstly for themselves (Me), then and only then is it possible for collective change (We) to occur.

STEP SIX: Develop an internal coaching capability and run a pilot group

You can do this by developing a group of potential coaching ‘champions’ from across the business. These will be leaders / managers / supervisors that are keen to learn and to develop their own practice.

They are prepared to undertake coaching training and spend time coaching colleagues from other departments. They will receive supervision and feedback and agree to complete the internal coaching training programme before being unleashed on the wider business. Run a pilot group and then reassess what tweaks and adjustments may need to be made (there are always one or two!).

STEP SEVEN: Provide all managers with basic training in coaching skills.

Designing an appropriate coaching development programme with internal/external stakeholders/customers in mind, will ensure that the daily workings of the business are congruent with your coaching methodology and approach.

In time, some of these coaches will themselves be involved in future training as coaching mentors, becoming an integral part of coaching development work within the organisation

STEP EIGHT: Explore how a coaching approach can be used with external stakeholders

Expand your horizons and consider the possibilities. Some companies use coaching skills not only to support their internal population but to develop their customer relationship and supplier management skills. One example is British Airways coaching passengers on using self-check-in terminals. I’ve recently been working with an organisation who, when and where appropriate, invite their customers to be involved in the design and the delivery of training programmes…which the customer loves doing as it broadens and deepens understanding and appreciation all round and gets the coaching ’fit’ as right as possible. It does require a little courage however as you may feel a little more exposed than you normally would when meeting with a customer.

STEP NINE: Establish what ‘progress’ and ultimate ‘success’ will look like

Return to your coaching vision. Has the strategy produced the required shift in culture and helped the organisation achieve its goals? Review the evidence. How do you know whether you’ve made progress or achieved your aims and objectives?

STEP TEN: Ensure that coaching is built into all HR processes and metrics including performance measurement

Coaching should eventually become part of job descriptions and the individual’s KPIs. When your coaching culture really develops momentum, it will also need to be an integral part of selection and promotion criteria, leadership capabilities and competencies.

So, these are my ten steps to success. Remember, when beginning the journey of creating and implementing a coaching culture all you have to do is take the first practical step otherwise you may feel overwhelmed by the size and apparent complexity of the task. Still, there’s always a pint of crème de menthe waiting for you

If you have any questions or comments please get in touch.